Google is disabling some Phone app features on older Pixel devices after acknowledging a bug that inadvertently leaked audio to callers. The issue has specifically been linked to the Take a Message feature released last year, which automatically answers and transcribes voicemails when you miss a call, with a handful of Pixel 4 and 5 owners reporting that their microphones were activating when callers were leaving messages.
“We’ve investigated this issue, which we’ve confirmed affects a very small subset of Pixel 4 and 5 devices under very specific and rare circumstances,” said Google community manager Siri Tejaswini on a support page. “Out of an abundance of caution, we’re disabling Take a Message and next-gen Call Screen features from these devices.”
One Reddit user who experienced the bug said that callers did not hear their usual voicemail greeting, and that they “could hear me/room sounds while they were leaving a message.” The user describes how the microphone privacy indicator at the top-right corner of their phone display was triggered after missing a call and Take a Message activated. “It was as though I picked up the phone, except I had done nothing. It just passively started recording me and sending audio to the caller.”
We have asked Google if these features are being permanently removed from Pixel 4 and 5 handsets, or if they will be restored in the future. For now, Tejaswini says that impacted Pixel owners “will still be able to use manual and automatic Call Screening or their carrier voicemail instead.”